POP REVIEW

POP REVIEW; It's Anger, So They Scream

By NEIL STRAUSS

Published: July 29, 1995

Filter, which performed on Tuesday night at Limelight, is an exercise in bottled rage. The band, whose debut album, "Short Bus" (Reprise), has been slowly climbing the pop charts for three months, consists of five ordinary-looking guys expressing their anger in the simplest way a rock band can. They scream and play their guitars loudly. But Filter doesn't play heavy metal, grunge, punk or industrial rock, though two members used to work with the group Nine Inch Nails. It plays something in between.

Taking a tip from the minimalist composers Glenn Branca and Rhys Chatham, Filter has learned that when a short progression is played simultaneously on multiple instruments, the result can be power and intricacy. At Limelight, three guitarists and a bassist hammered power chords in unison as Matt Walker mechanically beat a hard, brittle rhythm. Occasionally, Brian Liesegang supplemented his guitar frenzy with electronic drones and noises, which he triggered by stepping on a keyboard that lay at his feet.

Filter's frontman, Rich Patrick, sang songs of fear, hate and death, much like Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails. But instead of internalizing his anger, he turned it outward and lashed out at those around him. "I think you'd be better off if you were dead," he screamed in his melodic voice in "Consider This." And in the Filter's hit single, Mr. Patrick sang about suicide as if it were a way to take a stand against society, delivering the song's title line, "Hey man, nice shot," with a mixture of admiration, condescension and sarcasm.

The band members even seemed to view the concert itself as an assault on the audience, albeit a catharsis-producing one. It was evident in the way they constantly spit water into the moshing crowd and, more tellingly, in the comment Mr. Patrick made directly before the encore, "I'm going to suck a little bit more out of you."